An artist’s rendering of the planned water park at the Gaylord Rockies Hotel and Conference Center. The indoor-outdoor water park will feature multiple pools, two water slides, a lazy river and a simulated hot springs.

They sued when the commission declined their request to make Aurora reapply after its original partner, Gaylord Entertainment, backed out. Gaylord sold operational rights for the brand to Marriott International, which in turn helped bring in RIDA as the new developer last May.

Aurora asked the Denver District Court to vacate the action and also filed a countersuit in Arapahoe County, arguing that the hotels, fearful of competition, are trying to interfere with the development.

“We will have to let the courts decide that, but we feel very confident they will side with us that there is merit in our lawsuit and in protecting Colorado’s taxpayers,” said Lynea Hansen, a spokeswoman for the hotels challenging the state incentives.

A panel appointed by the Colorado Supreme Court will meet Feb. 21 to decide on whether the two cases should be combined, said Thomas Snyder, an attorney in Denver with Kutak Rock, which is representing Aurora.

Investors are slowly regaining their appetite for mega-hotel projects after a five-year hiatus that followed the 2008 financial crisis. Las Vegas is expected to move beyond the rehabs of old casinos and see a new complex called Resorts World Las Vegas.

Mitzner said he is more confident now than he was in May of raising enough to cover the $750 million to $850 million the project will cost.

That said, investors aren’t at the point where they would forgo the state incentives or the up to $300 million that Aurora and other local governments have pledged against future tax revenues the project generates.

“It is a cloud that hangs over you,” Mitzner said of the legal challenge.

In theory, Aurora could have reapplied and received a new state incentive award in December. But Mitzner said what RIDA is building matches the scope of what Gaylord and Aurora initially proposed and will bring in 450,000 new out-of-state visitors.

He also said there were no guarantees that opponents wouldn’t have thrown up another set of legal challenges.

As it awaits a resolution, RIDA is crafting a design it hopes will allow the project to stand out with investors and create a new model for future Gaylord hotels, which critics have dismissed as “faux” and “big box.”

“With Marriott as our partners, we have the right to be creative,” Mitzner said.

On Thursday, RIDA announced that the conference hotel would include an indoor-outdoor water park designed to appeal to families. The attraction would also further differentiate it from the Denver hotels worried about the potential loss of convention business.

The Gaylord Rockies’ design will let in lots of light with vistas beckoning visitors to the great outdoors, said Nunzio DeSantis, the HKS architect supervising the project’s design.

One of the challenges in such a massive space, at 1.9 million square feet, is keeping people from feeling lost or disoriented, DeSantis said.

The space will be broken up into segments and wings that make the space seem smaller than it is. Building materials will include stones and woods native to the region, and the linear flow will approximate the foothills.

He said the complex will reveal itself over time as people move through it, like a “great book.”

“Every city in America will say, ‘I want one of these,’ ” DeSantis boasted of the next-generation Gaylord.

If the lawsuits conclude in favor of RIDA and Aurora, Mitzner said construction could start in mid-2015 with an opening in 2017.

He also predicts that within three to five years after it is open, even opponents and competitors will consider the hotel a positive for metro Denver.

Aldo Svaldi has worked at The Denver Post since 2000. His coverage areas have included residential real estate, economic development and the Colorado economy. He's also worked for Financial Times Energy, the Denver Business Journal and Arab News.

250 people -- all homeless and high-frequency users of jail, detox and emergency departments at taxpayer expense -- have been tracked down by Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and Mental Health Center of Denver outreach workers and given apartments through Denver's social-impact bond program.